Capital Eye Opener: Monday, November 2

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

SCOTUS WATCH: The United States Supreme Court is poised to overhaul laws that govern how companies may spend political cash and that decision could come as early as tomorrow. A study by watchdog group Common Cause uses data from the Center for Responsive Politics to examine the potential repercussions of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commissionif the court decides to allow corporate political spending. “Lifting the ban on corporate political spending could unleash a flood of money into the political system and further diminish the public’s voice,” the report says. The study illustrates how special interests are already willing to spend big bucks to get their way on Capitol Hill: the billions of dollars that corporations and unions spend on lobbying efforts; PhRMA‘s $150 million advertising campaign to support Sen. Max Baucus‘ (D-Mont.) health care plan without the public health insurance option; the $1.4 million per day that insurance companies and pharmaceuticals are spending this year on lobbying; and so on. For more information on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, read our August story and our live Web chat about the case.

INJECTING TRANSPARENCY INTO THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE: Today is the last day for organizations to sign a Union of Concerned Scientists petition calling on Congress to require “that any advisory panel created in a new health care law operate transparently and with as few conflicted members as possible.” The federal agencies that have to implement health care reform, whatever shape it takes, will likely depend on many advisory committees that do their work free of public scrutiny and may include members with financial ties to the special interests. If your organization is interested in signing this

by COB today, send along the name of the organization and the title of the signer to [email protected]. As a group that advocates for transparency, the Center for Responsive Politics is among the groups supporting this effort.

CRP IN THE NEWS: Friday’s story about the third-quarter lobbying boom by Capital Eye reporter Michael Beckel has been generating quite a bit of interest from the press. The Washington Post, National Journal, Associated Press and Huffington Post all wrote stories about the $849 million that special interests spent on lobbying between July and September of this year. In other news, the New York Timescited our data about contributions from now-defunct lobbying firm PMA Group in a story about members of the House who are being investigated by the House Ethics Committee — a fact that came out last week after the Washington Post got its hands on the confidential list. CRP Executive Director Sheila Krumholz spoke to ABC News about six banks that received taxpayer funds from the federal government to keep them afloat and how much they’re spending to lobby. “These banks are spending tens of thousands of dollars every day that Congress has been in session, essentially using the taxpayer bailout to turn it around and lobby taxpayers, in part to fight regulatory reform.” ABC News also wrote about Communication Director Dave Levinthal’s report on Major League Baseball’s political spending.

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